Day 18: hidden face

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On Saturday (Day 18), Kajsa and I played outside for awhile. She played on her trike for quite awhile, but we also drew and wrote a lot with sidewalk chalk. Our driveway lends itself to lots of chalk art,

which is quite fun. Now, however, she’s getting to the point where she sometimes wants to correct her mistakes in chalk art. And so she uses her mittens to try. Which kind of messes it up a bit more, and certainly doesn’t keep mittens nice and clean. Not that mittens should stay nice and clean, but it’d be nice to not have to wash them too often.

Before I took this photo, she was showing me her chalky mittens. Then she started teasing me and hiding her face. This wasn’t one of those moments when a child hides something from a parent because she did something wrong. Clearly that happens. And we do the same with God. Or we try. And yet, when we want God’s help, we don’t want God to hide God’s face from us.

I love that the Samaritan woman at the well did not hide her lifestory from Jesus. It helps that Jesus knew it, and told her so. But she still didn’t try to make excuses, or hide more, etc. Instead she seemed to gain some freedom from being known -as is–by Jesus the Messiah.

Hiding our stories or faces from God is kind of hard, given that God knows it all anyway. But that doesn’t mean we are always rational about our relationships with God. At times we hold our hands up, trying to hide our faces, and our feelings. Or maybe we’re honest with God when we talk to God, but mostly we hide our faces because we’re too busy and distracted to face God ourselves.

I realize I’m writing this on Monday, and the post is supposed to be for Saturday (when the photo was taken), but I have been thinking about the woman at the well still… and I hope I continue to learn from her story and encounter with Jesus.